Holding On
by A Mad Man With A Box
Summary: In Partners in Crime, the Doctor tells Donna to hold on as she dangles from the end of a cable above London. But then he remembers another time when he told a lost companion to hold on. Doomsday.


A Christmas present from me to you (unless you don't celebrate Christmas, in which case it's just a present).

Also a 'Please forgive me' present for not having finished writing a new chapter of Shards of Shattered Roses yet. I'll get there.

This story sort of ties in with my other recent story Cracked Memories.

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, all rights to the BBC and etc.

Triggers by LilyRoseXD

The pain is still there,  
No matter how far away you run,  
It's an ongoing war; a constant fight,  
Especially tricky for a man without a gun.

Suddenly you're right there,  
Right in the corner of your eye,  
Where you have to relive every breath,  
Unable to change; forced to stand by.

An action, a look, a thought,  
Sometimes a simple word,  
Anything can pull the trigger,  
Amidst the war it goes unheard.

* * *

"Hold on. Hold on, we can get in through the window," the Doctor said to Donna as he buzzed the sonic screwdriver at the window in front of them.

The Doctor and Donna were stranded in the window cleaner's platform outside the Adipose building. High up above on the rooftop, Miss Foster ordered the building to be deadlocked.

"Can't get it open!" the Doctor said, frowning at the window.

Donna reached down and picked up a spanner from the floor of the platform.

"Smash it then!" Donna proceeded to bash the glass with the spanner while the Doctor gave up on the sonic screwdriver and opted for brute force instead.

Miss Foster smiled at their futile attempts to break the window. She aimed her sonic pen at the cable and began to cut it. Thick green mist appeared from the cable and flowed upwards into the sky.

Donna looked up. "She's cutting the cable!" she said, stating the obvious.

The Doctor paused to look at Donna and then upwards. He watched hopelessly as the cable snapped.

The whole window cleaner's platform dropped and the left side fell downwards so it was almost vertical. Donna slipped and fell out, grabbing the swinging cable as she fell.

"Donna!" the Doctor yelled down at her from the safety of the platform.

"Doctor!" she shrieked, dangling from the end of the cable.

"Hold on!" he instructed.

His words brought back submerged memories. Memories deeply hidden in an attempt to move on. He was helpless, flailing, in a sea of these memories. And before he had a chance to save himself, he was pulled under.

"_Online and locked," the mechanical voice said as Rose pushed the lever up into the locked position._

_The screams of Daleks were all around the Doctor and Rose, quivering through the air as the monsters themselves were sucked towards the void._

_The void. The nothing space. Empty of gravity and direction. Empty of time and light and matter. _

_Hell._

"_Rose. Hold on!" the Doctor screamed at her, flinging out an arm as if he was close enough to reach her. Rose was clutching the lever desperately with both hands, but her whole body was being dragged towards the void. _

_She let out a wordless cry as she struggled to keep her grasp on the lever. _

"_HOLD ON!" the Time Lord yelled again, once more flinging his free arm out into the space between them. But the distance between them was too great. There was no way for him to reach her, to save her. Not this time. _

_After a fleeting glance at each other and another wail from Rose, her fingers slipped and she was falling. _

_Falling._

_Falling._

_And he was screaming._

_He was crying, "ROSE!" as there was nothing else to say really. There was nothing else he could do. _

_He was yelling and she was yelling, and time lasted far too long and never long enough as she fell towards the void._

_Suddenly, Pete was there and he had Rose. She twisted her neck to look at him one last time and that single moment could have lasted forever but it wouldn't have been long enough._

_And then she was gone. _

_The walls had closed. The worlds were sealed._

_And she was gone forever._

Donna's shrill voice cut through the painful waters of memory, and the Doctor surfaced, gasping great lungfuls of air. He was momentarily disorientated until he remembered where he was. Earth. Adipose building. Window cleaner's platform. Donna grasping a cable above the great city of London. The Doctor had just told her to hold on.

"I. AM."

There was a terrible moment. A fleeting second. An instant that the Doctor would always look back on with shame. A moment when he wished that Rose were here with him now, holding on to the cable, alive and safe. And that_ Donna _wasn't able to hold on to the lever, and had slipped and fallen into the void and was gone.

He looked down to the end of the cable, and saw Rose clutching it, dangling in midair, her blond hair flying all over her face as it had done on New Earth all that time ago…

But Rose was slipping, now only one hand holding the cable end. He swallowed and reached out an arm even though she was just as unreachable as last time.

"ROSE!"

She looked up at him as her other hand slipped and she was falling. Falling.

Always falling.

He blinked.

The moment was over.

It was Donna again. And she was holding on.

* * *

Merry Christmas (to all who celebrate it), and a Happy New Year to everyone.


End file.
